Is healing in WoW easy? First timer here.

[Ahovv]

Well I don't think the healers will agree with you there. They worked as hard as everyone else for that progress and now they have to be sat while everyone else goes on working towards BiS?

In WoD there was nothing preventing a healer from being able to dps in their off-spec.

Legion is fucking that up by pidgeonholing players into one primary role. It's natural that 1) not every fight requires the same amount of healers, and 2) as you farm it you would drop healers. Ideally the game would allow them to play a dps spec, but no, Blizzard thought the artifact grind would be an amazing idea.

[kary]

In WoD there was nothing preventing a healer from being able to dps in their off-spec.

Legion is fucking that up by pidgeonholing players into one primary role. It's natural that 1) not every fight requires the same amount of healers, and 2) as you farm it you would drop healers. Ideally the game would allow them to play a dps spec, but no, Blizzard thought the artifact grind would be an amazing idea.

It's almost like you have 0 beta experience and have no idea how easy it is to get a 2nd weapon to a usable level

[Ahovv]

It's almost like you have 0 beta experience and have no idea how easy it is to get a 2nd weapon to a usable level

Usable =/= optimal or competitive. I don't care about what you believe is "good enough."

[Sansnom]

Healing is the easiest role in the game. Half the fights you don't need to learn and the other half is stacking and spreading. All of raiding is easy unless you are cutting edge mythic.

That sounds more like you are playing at the wrong difficulty.

Then tell me at Mythic, is healing still easier than DPS or tanking?

[kary]

Usable =/= optimal or competitive. I don't care about what you believe is "good enough."

Guess you'll be that one guy grinding your artifact weapon to 34+ before raids come out, huh?

And "competitive" is funny because most of your power comes through stacking traits, not having weapon levels. 1 gold dragon and your best traits is all you really need to be "competitive"

But eh, keep complaining though, you'll get wrinkles at an early age.

[Auxora]

DPS is by far miles and away the easiest role, anyone saying otherwise or that healing is easier clearly hasn't done it outside of lfr or maybe dungeons. LFR and heroic or lower dungeons are mindless for every role because you can totally ignore mechanics.

It's really not even debatable that tank and healer are the toughest simply because those 2 roles actually have to watch and coordinate with other players, along with managing their own actions and positioning. All dps have to do is manage themselves and their own rotation. So dps just is the easiest role without any question.

Now whether tanking or healing is more difficult is a tougher debate. There is coordination in tanking for sure (trading stacks, etc.), and they are responsible for leading the group in a wayu usually even if they aren't technically raid leader. A bad tank can also cause a raid wipe faster than any other "bad" role through things like bad positioning or not trading stacks, so it's probably the least forgiving for being unskilled. That's all offset to some degree by the fact that tanks definitely have an easy "rotation", and also since managing and keeping threat has barely been an issue anymore since wotlk. Tanks had it much tougher back then when they really had constantly monitor and work at keeping their threat above the dps's, since their threat levels were much closer and a good dps could pull out-threat a tank fairly easily. IMO I'd say tanking and healing are equally difficult currently (at more challenging content, not lfr or heroic or lower dungeons), and dps is by far simplest.

In the end though "easy" is subjective up to the individual and their playstyle and skill level. Plus the different healing classes do play a bit differently. Give it a try and see if it's a good fit for you and something you enjoy. There are people that act elitist and say that all of wow including mythic raids or 3k arena is easy. You won't really get a good feel for whether it's easy for you though until you get to later content. You can't really judge from things like lfr since for any role you can faceroll or afk and get through it. People will give you good feedback your runs if it's something you are doing well at, so you'll know soon enough.

[Nayami]

How to healer:

- Download Grid
- Download Clique
- Move Grid health bars to the lower middle of the screen
- Bind spells with Clique
- Keep health bars from going to zero

Seriously though just choose a healing class that you personally like, level it to max level, read a guide for that spec, then practice it and you'll be fine.

[Deleted]

It's easy to get in, but becomes stressful on higher levels (as if mythic raiding, not high character levels), cause you generally feel that you could be doing more. And it's true most of the time.

[Holofernes]

As a many years guy healer, dps, tank yep.

Healing is the easiest role. Its actually relaxing once u got the hang out of it and have a well working healer team, only non experienced healers would ever say healing is hard.

I mained a healer from Ulduar to Highmaul, in a pretty decent 10 men guild, and did a lot of 25 man raiding to in wotlk / cata. IUn 25 healing is even more easy, its basically spam stuff when needed, either it is enough or not. in 10 mens individual decision making played a bigger role, thats why i liked it more. The difficulty is getting the hang out of when what is needed, and this only comes from experience. But once it clicks, it seems easy (a bot could do 20 / 25 man healing, and there actually was such an addon in tbc, that did like everything, one of our priests had it and went afk on some fights, and it actually performed very strong) .

In some random pug with my ilvl 713 mainly pvp eqip resto shaman i manage to pull 150 k hps on council mythic this week, never healed mythic hfc before, and some other healers with better gear and hfc clear experience were blown on the meters. So yeah healing is automatism , and the skill ceiling for healing is not as high as it is for tanks or dps. 2 healing heroic ragnaross was tight as fuck, but it worked pretty well. we were 3 healing butcher myth because of enrage, and several other bosses in Wod when blizz originally stated that mythic would need 4-5 healers. So as a healer u are screwed as number 4 or 5, because in many progress fights u are out, and on farm u are irrelevant. Thats why i went back to be dps. 20 men raiding only needs 3 core healers, while blizz stated it would need at least 4. bad luck if u were the 2nd of one class.
Getting a place in myth raiding as heal became nearly as difficult as getting a tank spot,but good dps are always searched for.

Tanking is the job that needs most awareness (movement, add spawn, abilties/cds), when tanking im totally focused the whole time, and a 3 hour raid night is really exhausting me. I have been a warrior maintank of a decent guild from mid / late classic to Ulduar. And jesus tanking kael (t5 endboss) was a hell of a concentration effort with all that stuff going on. But i personally think that raid tanking got easier on a personal level, u dont have to care about threat (5 man heroics in tbc as a warrior tank in blue gear with a feral, 2 rouges and restoshaman with no dispell, thats some apm and movement skills for you to learn, this was so intense i even dreamed about it, most cm tanking wasnt near as intense)

But u need better coordination with your tank mate nowadays, if u mess up tankswaps only a little bit and get one wrong hit, it can be a wipe on mythic difficulty (well exept u played dk, they were kind of imba, but thats another story).

And then comes dps. dps has no upper limit, u can always do better, no matter how good you are. following encounter mechanics with as little as possible movement, getting one cast more off, factoring in trinket procs, time cds , factor in your raids kill times and stuff. For the REALLY good dps, there is so much micromanagment and decision making going on (for example as warrior to make a charge leap charge kombi into mannoroth so that u dont loose a single autohit during shadowforce), this goes to such a detail level and you can always improve and do better next week. Most people who state "dps is just about their rotation, its very easy" have no clue. If u need to pay attention to your rotation or use of abilities as a dps, well u are 100% not a good dps.

[melodramocracy]

As a many years guy healer, dps, tank yep.

Healing is the easiest role. Its actually relaxing once u got the hang out of it and have a well working healer team, only non experienced healers would ever say healing is hard.

I mained a healer from Ulduar to Highmaul, in a pretty decent 10 men guild, and did a lot of 25 man raiding to in wotlk / cata. IUn 25 healing is even more easy, its basically spam stuff when needed, either it is enough or not. in 10 mens individual decision making played a bigger role, thats why i liked it more. The difficulty is getting the hang out of when what is needed, and this only comes from experience. But once it clicks, it seems easy (a bot could do 20 / 25 man healing, and there actually was such an addon in tbc, that did like everything, one of our priests had it and went afk on some fights, and it actually performed very strong) .

In some random pug with my ilvl 713 mainly pvp eqip resto shaman i manage to pull 150 k hps on council mythic this week, never healed mythic hfc before, and some other healers with better gear and hfc clear experience were blown on the meters. So yeah healing is automatism , and the skill ceiling for healing is not as high as it is for tanks or dps. 2 healing heroic ragnaross was tight as fuck, but it worked pretty well. we were 3 healing butcher myth because of enrage, and several other bosses in Wod when blizz originally stated that mythic would need 4-5 healers. So as a healer u are screwed as number 4 or 5, because in many progress fights u are out, and on farm u are irrelevant. Thats why i went back to be dps. 20 men raiding only needs 3 core healers, while blizz stated it would need at least 4. bad luck if u were the 2nd of one class.
Getting a place in myth raiding as heal became nearly as difficult as getting a tank spot,but good dps are always searched for.

Tanking is the job that needs most awareness (movement, add spawn, abilties/cds), when tanking im totally focused the whole time, and a 3 hour raid night is really exhausting me. I have been a warrior maintank of a decent guild from mid / late classic to Ulduar. And jesus tanking kael (t5 endboss) was a hell of a concentration effort with all that stuff going on. But i personally think that raid tanking got easier on a personal level, u dont have to care about threat (5 man heroics in tbc as a warrior tank in blue gear with a feral, 2 rouges and restoshaman with no dispell, thats some apm and movement skills for you to learn, this was so intense i even dreamed about it, most cm tanking wasnt near as intense)

But u need better coordination with your tank mate nowadays, if u mess up tankswaps only a little bit and get one wrong hit, it can be a wipe on mythic difficulty (well exept u played dk, they were kind of imba, but thats another story).

And then comes dps. dps has no upper limit, u can always do better, no matter how good you are. following encounter mechanics with as little as possible movement, getting one cast more off, factoring in trinket procs, time cds , factor in your raids kill times and stuff. For the REALLY good dps, there is so much micromanagment and decision making going on (for example as warrior to make a charge leap charge kombi into mannoroth so that u dont loose a single autohit during shadowforce), this goes to such a detail level and you can always improve and do better next week. Most people who state "dps is just about their rotation, its very easy" have no clue. If u need to pay attention to your rotation or use of abilities as a dps, well u are 100% not a good dps.

I'll agree that tanking needs a lot of awareness, and arguably more communication than most other roles due to swaps etc. But your focus tends to be on the other tank, boss placement, and what adds you need to grab (if any). Until you outgear encounters, you're worrying more about controlling incoming damage than you are pure dps.

And dps certainly does have upper limits, there is a mathematical hard ceiling based on your gear, buffs, and boss your facing. How close someone can get to that point is a different question, but I'd argue that when push comes to shove, if the boss isn't hitting enrage, you're doing enough dps as a group... the rest is just execution I'd also be willing to bet that the number of players who pull their rotation off flawlessly and don't ever consciously think about it are probably less than .2% of the playerbase.

/I'll now wait and watch all of that .2% reply here and vouch for themselves

[SteveRocks]

only time that should happen is if the fight is desinged so (decently high dmg on raid at all times) or people take way to much avoidble dmg

Agreed. Not only should healers be throwing out some dps here and there, but many fights have abilities that healers can help interrupt/purge.

[prwraith]

lol I'm sorry but I'm going to have to side with La on this one. Healing is a joke. DPS top spot is competitive. People go hard to be on top of the meters and I don't know about your guild but just looking at a website is not going to change being on point at all times on top of mechanics going that little extra mile to make up for either being undergeared or relinquishing top spot to throw out a heal provide support in some way.

Yeesh do you even raid bro? The dps meter is a religion.

Childish to think the competition between healers isn't at least if not more competitive than dps.

[masterhorus8]

Childish to think the competition between healers isn't at least if not more competitive than dps.

It's especially fun on the fights where you're not fighting over the healthbars as much as other fights, such as Tyrant and Gorefiend.

[Tiphess]

if a healer can afford the globals for this, it would be better to use one healer less in the raidteam.

Eh, no.

Regardless of the fight, there is always a few seconds here and there where the raid doesnt take damage, so you just do damage instead.

If you don't dps as a healer you're just bad, sorry.

[callipygoustp]

Legion is fucking that up by pidgeonholing players into one primary role. It's natural that 1) not every fight requires the same amount of healers, and 2) as you farm it you would drop healers. Ideally the game would allow them to play a dps spec, but no, Blizzard thought the artifact grind would be an amazing idea.

Artifact weapons are one of the primary reasons I frown on Legion, and exactly for the reason Ahovv states.

In previous expansions, even with feral being my dps off spec, by the time my guild had trivialized content and was looking to reduce the numbers of healers, enough dps gear had dropped that my feral dps set was in a competitive state and I could easily swap between resto and feral and be of a benefit to the raid in either role. Now? I'll have to level up a second artifact weapon in order for my dps to be competitive when raid content becomes trivialized. Eh, no thanks.

And being an alt-holic on top of that... yeah, big turn off.

- - - Updated - - -

Edit:

With regards to the OP - Having been a healer class lead through Wrath, the first two tiers of Cata, and the middle tiers of MoP, my experience recruiting healers regularly convinced me that healing isn't as easy as people make it out to be.

[Otimus]

Speaking for a friend of mine, she prefers healing because in dungeons, she's the only one of them there and it's less stressful than tanking. The reason she feels better being the only one of them there is, is because she doesn't have to actively see herself compared to another player in her meters, and feel like she's failing to perform as well. (That's one of the biggest reasons DPS'ing was a problem for her). Probably an edge case that not many will agree with, but I can see the value in that.

[Binko]

Leveling as a healer can be fairly miserable these days. Explains why I would get literally insta queue pops when I recently leveled a horde priest. Nobody wants to heal the horrible players who are in random leveling dungeons these days.

Low level tanks, as a norm, have absolute tunnel vision and only want to move forward as fast as possible without the least concern for the rest of the group. You, as the healer, can be aggroed by mobs, stunned, silenced, and Mr. Newbie Tank will be speeding up the stairs and around the bend, out of your sight, but already pulling the next four groups of mobs all at once.

[Ahovv]

if a healer can afford the globals for this, it would be better to use one healer less in the raidteam.

I can guarantee by your comment that you have never raided in a competitive environment.

[WskyDK]

Ask the question again when you're healing people in appropriate gear for the content.
It's not that it's harder, but there's much less forgiveness

[Asotcha]

Its not the easiest role by any means, but I do suggest giving it a try just for the experience because it may be interesting to you, or you may get really into it and enjoy yourself. I only heal on my resto shaman but its a pretty good time. Be sure to look into the mechanics of the class/spec you decide to try this on to see if it may fit your personal play style-- and also keep in mind that if you decide not to heal, you want one of its offspecs to be something you would still be willing to use one day, so it isn't a waste.

Are you worried that you wont be able to do a complex role? why must it be the 'simplest' one for you to be interested? Its none of my buisness of course, but I've noticed that its really a personal sorta thing. The role that is as comfortable as a pair of old shoes to one of your guildies could drive another of them crazy. Just try them out and see which one 'fits' you I main a rogue, so its not like you have to perfect yourself for one role and not do the others cuz 'reasons'.

Either way best wishes and have fun ^.^